Cuckoo Tavern: Virginia's Paul Revere Rode From Here

The community of Cuckoo in Louisa County takes its name from a tavern that stood here in colonial times, and that tavern was the starting point for one of the most consequential overnight rides in American history. On the night of June third, seventeen eighty-one, Captain Jack Jouett was resting at the Cuckoo Tavern when he spotted British dragoons under Colonel Banastre Tarleton, two hundred fifty horsemen in total, moving through the darkness toward Charlottesville.

The Virginia General Assembly was sitting at Charlottesville. Governor Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and most of the legislature were there. Jouett understood what Tarleton intended and immediately mounted his horse and rode forty miles through the night on back roads, arriving at Monticello before dawn to warn Jefferson and his guests. The warning allowed Jefferson and all but seven of the legislators to escape before Tarleton arrived.

The Virginia General Assembly voted to award Jouett a sword and a pair of pistols. He is sometimes called the Paul Revere of the South, though his ride covered four times the distance. The Cuckoo Tavern itself is gone, but historical markers in Louisa County preserve the story of the night a fast horse and a wide-awake captain changed the course of the Revolution.